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Microsoft Relaxing Xbox One Kinect Requirements, Giving GPU Power a Boost?

Posted by timothy on from the full-speed-ahead-damn-the-torpedos dept.

MojoKid writes "News from gaming insider Pete Doss is that Microsoft is mulling significant changes to the restrictions it places on developers regarding the Xbox One's GPU. Reportedly, some 10% of total GPU horsepower is reserved for the Kinect — 8% for video and 2% for voice processing. Microsoft is apparently planning changes that would free up that 8% video entirely, leaving just 2% of the system's GPU dedicated to voice input. If Microsoft makes this change, it could have a significant uplift on system frame rates — and it's not clear that developers would necessarily need to patch the architecture to take advantage of the difference."

5 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Apples vs Apples by tuppe666 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Fact remains that even moderate PCs today outperform both the PS4 and Xbox One at a similar price point.

    Not in your or mine wildest dreams

    The PS4 from Wikipedia "The CPU consists of two quad-core Jaguar modules totaling 8 x86-64 cores. The GPU consists of 18 compute units to produce a theoretical peak performance of 1.84 TFLOPS. The system's GDDR5 memory is capable of running at a maximum clock frequency of 2.75 GHz (5500 MT/s) and has a maximum memory bandwidth of 176 GB/s. The console contains 8 GB of GDDR5 memory" for US$399.99, €399.99, £349.99

    vs

    For just the base unit of the PC for the same price http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Ins... Processor: Intel® Pentium® processor G2030 (3M Cache, 3.0 GHz), Memory (RAM): 4GB DDR3 SDRAM, 1600MHz-1X4GB, Storage (hard drive): 500GB Hard Drive, 3.5", 7200rpm, SATA, Optical Drive: DVD+/-RW Tray Load Drive, 16X, SATA Color: Black

    I am a bit tired of these comments being modded up in the hope of PC gaming making a comeback.

    1. Re:Apples vs Apples by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Radeon 7770 (~1.3Tflops) roughly matches XBONE @ $109
      Radeon 7859 (~1.8tflops) roughly matches PS4 @ $169 (139 with MIR)

      The 8 core Jaguar is crap. Any dual or quad core CPU will probably run circles around it, including Core2Quads. Take a 5+ year old PC, toss in a new GPU and your done.

    2. Re:Apples vs Apples by Sockatume · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'll be impressed if you can add 8GB GDDR5 and the rest of a SFF PC for under $330.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  2. Re:Still lightyears off of today's PC hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Bear in mind that prices for AMD GPUs are a little inflated at the moment because of the crypto mining craze.

    All the same, $150 sounds about right for the GPU in a mid-range gaming machine. Machines at that level are often built 'unbalanced' - a weaker CPU mated with a more expensive GPU, on the assumption that most games don't fully utilise the CPU. You only see serious investment on the CPU for higher end gaming machines or workstations.

  3. Re:Why is a GRAPHICS Process Unit processing VOICE by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Informative

    It might have something to do with the ability of GPUs to crank through FFTs like nobody's business...